


Popple and Fawful: Fragmentary Eclipse

by TKitten16



Category: Gregory Horror Show, Mario & Luigi RPG (Video Games), Super Mario & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - bugbro AU, Filled with OCs, Gen, Other, Other tags to be added, but there could be more in the editing phase idk, original mario kingdom, the last series' is mostly implied in the drafts i have
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKitten16/pseuds/TKitten16
Summary: (bugbro! AU) while attempting to steal from Mario and his brother while they're on another adventure, Popple is accidentally mistaken as one of the mario bros' many friends, and accepts a request by a member of a faraway kingdom that is currently being plagued by a seemingly never ending eclipse.(mostly written for NaNoWriMo 2019, also i apologise for any OOC-ness on anyone heck)
Relationships: Gerakobittsu | Fawful & Popple (Super Mario), OC/OC
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Prologue, part 1

The quiet sound of rustling leaves was the only sound Popple tried to make, as he stumbled through the bushes to a familiar red-roofed house, the sounds of the occupants told him that the Mario Brothers were about to leave for another old adventure. Where they were going the Shadow Thief didn’t know, though considering that they are pretty much superstars in this kingdom it could be either another ‘the princess is kidnapped!’, or ‘another kingdom needs our help!’.

Popple silently watched as the Mario bros exited their house, Mario ran ahead, while Luigi locked the door annoyedly. then turned (briefly missing the Shadow Thief) and followed after his older bro with haste.

Popple waited until the two of them were outside of earshot before walking up to the front door, briefly looking around to make sure that no-one else was there, and picked the lock with a satisfying click. the Shadow Thief smiled, then gingerly turned the handle and sneaked in, making sure to close the door behind him.

Popple looked around the house with intrigue, he honestly expected them to have a much bigger place, seeing as they were on about as many journeys as the amount of items Popple stole.  
  
He walked over to the kitchen area, and placed his thievery bag down on the counter gently, the place was a bit messed up, no doubt because of the brothers were rushing. With a few bits of food on the floor and the counters He took a pause to open up the slightly moving bag gently, a small black creature with four spider black legs and red/orange swirled eyes crawled out and looked at him.

“I am **Not** being used to this,” the currently-a-bug Fawful said, with a hint of anger in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah i know,” the Shadow Thief replied, checking inside some of the kitchen’s drawers for anything decent.“but we’re going to have to keep doing this, see? Until we find something to fix you at the very least...”

Fawful nodded solemnly, his eyes lowering slightly, “...Fawful has hopes we find something, being small and having weakness is not fun...”

The sound of a rapid knock at the door startled the two beanish brothers out of their talk, they looked at each other, then back at the door. Popple was confused, did the Mario bros forget something? Or were they already done with whatever they were doing?

After another set of knocking, the Shadow Thief apprehensively walked over to the front door, opening it just a small bit, “W-who is it?”

“Oh my grambi! I'm so sorry for the intrusion, sir. but are the mario brothers home?” the mint green rabbit-like person asked, they were about the same height as him, except for the large ears at least, wearing a blue frilly coat with a light blue pom-pom like collar, and white pants, a look of fear was plastered on the poor thing’s face as they stood there.

“No,” he replied simply, trying to keep himself composed. who was this person and why did they have to come here now?

“Well can’t you just call them? My kingdom really needs... wait.” the mint rabbit looked at him quizzically; “what are you even doing in there? Are you-”

“-I'm his Friend!” Popple blurted out, “y-yeah, a friend, j-just keepin’ the place safe, see!”

“Oh.” they deadpanned, then shook their head and said with a pleading voice; “then can **You** help us? my kingdom’s in huge danger and the curse on the island is going to spread if we don’t get immediate help from someone!”

Popple looked away from them and weighed the options in his head, the plausibility of this person’s story sounded fishy. But seeing as there was someone who knew that he was here, and could probably snitch on him if he didn’t... “if I say yes will ya leave me be?”

They nodded frantically.

“Then…” He sighed, “criminy...fine, I'll do it-”

“-Ohmygrambithankyouthankyouthankyousomuch!” they said all at once, grabbing Popple’s hand and shaking it so furiously that the shadow thief thought they were going to rip off his arm. They then stopped and turned away from him;”i’ll be at the airport, please come ASAP okay? Time is of the essence!” 

They then ran off, Popple (after making sure his arm was still in one piece) slowly closed the door and pressed his back against it, reeling at the implications that he had just agreed to. Why did he just do that? He only just a few weeks ago saved Fawful from his possible death, and now this?!

Actually, speaking of his little brother, where was he? Popple glanced at the kitchen counter, only to see his bag there. He checked in the kitchen drawers and cabinets, nope, checking the plant yielded nothing either. He was about to call out to him when he heard a small thud coming from the upstairs bedroom. He sighed in a small amount of relief and walked up the stairs to meet up with him.

Popple felt like this was going to be a long week…

* * *

“...and that’s what happened, see?” Popple finished explaining, sitting down on one of the beds that was there as he took in a breath to process everything some more.

“So a person that had the looking of a rabbit asked US for helping with kingdom problems?” Fawful said, clearly as confused as his older brother.

“I didn’t want them to call the toads or anythin’ on me, so I had no choice!” the shadow thief answered, feeling a twinge of anger in his voice as the exchange he had just a few minutes ago played in his mind.

Fawful took a bit to reply, thinking of what to do before saying; “well you could not be going, it is not being like the mustaches are going to have goneness for long.”

“That’s what i’m plannin’ on doing,” Popple said, getting up from the bed and shrugging, “the kingdom’s not my problem, and they don’t need a thief to go along with the curse or whatever…”

“...unless the kingdom is having something to help Fawful out, or a thing of valuableness,” the buggy beanish inquired, placing a claw to his face with curiosity as he remembered some of the mario brother’s adventures he read up on when he was working on his plans against them.

Popple paused, looking at Fawful with a slight gleam in his yellow eyes at what he was implying, “do you mean…?”

“Yes, i am meaning the kingdom is having treasure for stealing,” Fawful deadpanned, letting his thieving brother to dwell on it as he checked under Mario’s bed in search of things. Then getting back out with a huff of minor fury at finding only mushroom kingdom coins under there.

Popple thought on the decision for a few minutes, he could just not go, and miss out on getting something good (and something to cure Fawful), or he could go and get into trouble with the kingdom’s curse problem and mess things up…

The image of the rabbit-person popped into his mind and showed what he was about to choose, the shadow thief sighed as he came to it with resigned annoyance.

“Fine, it’s better than staying here and gettin’ caught.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to whatever the heck this is!  
> i really wanted to try doing NaNoWriMo this year, so i attempted trying out doing a story that was mostly unplanned, (the only thing that was really planned was the lunairen's designs and the basics of Tethys - the first lunairen Popple meets-, soo... yeah.)  
> i both regret and loved that i did this, and i am very happy i managed to get as many words i got in the chapter 'drafts' of this lol.  
> i also apologise for any delays in the future finished chapters since i tend to get pretty bad paranoia about the quality of things i write heck, but i'm going to try my best on this thing!  
> see ya next chapter i guess!  
> ~TKitten


	2. prologue part 2

The path to the airport was bustling with people of various shapes, sizes, and species. Popple quietly adjusted the straps of his hooded disguise as he trudged through the crowd. Making sure not to bump into a toad, or run in front of a passing masked jester and his cat friend. He took a short pause to look at the two quizzically. Managing to hear a small bit of their conversation in the loud noises all around him.

"Shen, you really need to forget about him. For your own sake…" the cat said quietly, his voice trailing off and blending into the crowds chattering when they were too far away from the Shadow Thief to hear.

Popple had a bad urge to follow them, but shook his head and quickly resumed his pace. They weren't his problem. He had to get to that rabbit-person, and that Shen guy probably just had a bad breakup or something.

He had -finally- managed to check into the airport terminal, when he was suddenly tackled by a mint green blur, he reflexively tried to flee, only to realize that it was the rabbit-person he saw earlier. Right, kingdom in trouble thing.

"You actually came!" They said in a much more hopeful tone than Popple expected.

"Er… yeah," he replied dumbly, looking outside and at the planes, he really didn't know what to do at this moment, "so, where’n the world are we going?"

"The lunaire kingdom!" They said, hopping over to the other end of the terminal. Guiding popple along the way.

"The...what kingdom?" He asked, tilting his head slightly as they passed by the gate, and exited out and into the outside air.

"The lunaire kingdom," they repeated, stopping near a small dark purple plane with various Moon and star patterns on it. "It's… actually I'll just tell you about it when we depart, it'll pass the time faster!"

Popple nodded hesitantly, a small amount of worry starting to build up inside him. Is this normal for those Mario brothers? Why did he have to-

"Come on, We need to go!" They said, quickly shoving him up the stairs and into the plane before he could even finish his thoughts, making him trip on the carpeted floor and Accidentally drop the used-to-be hiding Fawful.

"Ouch…"

"Wh-what is that thing?!" They screeched, jumping to the back of the plane, a wave of fear showing across their face.

Popple sighed; scooping up the currently dazed Fawful and looking over to them with annoyance. well, might as well tell him before this escalates- "this is… my brother-"

"Your… what?" They replied, struggling to understand what the Shadow Thief said. "But he doesn't even look like you."

"It's a long story, see?" Popple interjected, "let's just say that dark magic is not a thing ya should be playin’ around with, i didn’t wanna leave him back at the house we were... *ahem* staying at, so he’s comin’ with us,"

He ignored the glare that Fawful gave him. Continuing to look over to the dumbfounded lunairen. Who, after a few seconds staring back and forth between the two, sighed and relaxed themself.

"O-ok…" they stuttered awkwardly, before going over to the pilot cabin and talking to the person inside for a bit, then sitting down on one of the blue colored airplane seats. "We'll be leaving soon, strap in!"   
  
Popple nodded, putting Fawful down on a seat and sitting on the one next to him, then put the seatbelt on hastily once he heard the telltale sign of the plane starting up. the Shadow Thief really didn’t like airplanes, but seeing as this was the only thing the kid asked him to go on, he figured the place was not that easy to get to. 

“So, what’s the lunaria kingdom, again?” He started, remembering what they said earlier.   
  
“It’s lunaire, not lunara.” they corrected, then breathed in deeply and began telling the tale.  
  


* * *

  
"Lunaire kingdom is-, well was. A kingdom that primarily lived by the moon, some say we were even descended from star rabbits themselves!"  
  
"our first king, Polaris, founded our kingdom after discovering our island over a thousand years ago, after starting what would be our castle town he himself decided to make a beautiful moondial to commemorate the completion-"  
  
"-we don't need your whole kingdom's stinking story! just tell 'why the place's busted!" Popple interjected, just wanting them to get to the point already.

The mint green lunairen glared at him for a few moments, before exhaling and continuing "fine, Anyway, one day. When we were just minding our business. An odd man with metal arms came along."

"We didn't really pay him much attention. Mostly due to the fact that (other than his weird ability to mimic every voice he hears) he seemed to be pretty nice. We allowed him to explore."

"While we were asleep though, something bad happened to our old celestial moondial. Eight of the jewels that were affixed to it just seemed to disappear. Overnight."

"We originally thought to find the odd man. Since he had came here and was last seen near the thing. But. We found nothing, not even any traces that he even stayed at the hotel there!"

"What's worse, is that ever since we found the moon dial in its state, we have been under a very dark and never-ending eclipse, along with seeing very mangled monsters appearing in the jerbled forest, outside the castle town, and even in a few scattered villages, to the point where most people can't even leave their houses!"

"At my wit's end, I decided to get some help. I hopped on this plane, and everything up to now you basically know. Right?"

Popple nodded absent-mindedly, starting to fall asleep from all...that. He didn’t really care about the problems the Lunairen was talking about, but since they were the only guide to this kingdom right now he, like his actual identity to them, held it back. 

"Oh, we're almost there!" They said, pointing outside the window. And toward a shadowy island.

From what the shadow thief could see, the place was primarily forest, with a huge moon-shaped mountain to the northeast, and a very small desert opposite to it. The center of the island however. Seemed to be completely impossible to see. A slight feeling of fear inexplicably came over him when he looked at it. He didn't know why, but it felt like Something was very wrong there.

He glanced over to the lunairen to see a look of complete terror on their face. They ran over to the pilot with a speed he had never seen from them. He had managed to overhear the them say simply;

"Something's wrong with Star Lake!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo here's the last part of the prologue, i'm still working on the first chapter (that i also split in editing heck) so it's going to take a bit but hopefully won't take too long.
> 
> Anyway, Popple's much harder to write his voice in than Fawful for whatever reason bye!
> 
> ~TKitten


	3. Chapter 1-1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full title for this chapter is: 'Judgement For The Bean Thief'.

The plane landed much more roughly than the three wanted, mostly due to the mint green lunarien pleading to land as close to Star Lake as possible. Thankfully their airport (for whatever reason) was directly next to it. Though Popple would've liked if he was as far away from it as possible.  
  
getting up from the floor and outside the plane itself, the three of them glanced around the currently shadowy lake. Well, as best as they could. Seeing as the lake itself was pretty much covered in darkness.  
  
“I don’t understand,” The mint green lunairen said, as they attempted to walk toward the lake, only to be blocked by some invisible force of shadows. “the moondial's protection shouldn't be gone this quickly!"

"So the dial of moons has protection?" Fawful chirped questionally. 

"...yes," they said, after processing what the buggy beanish meant, "our island's moondial is supposed to protect against any corruption from alternate dimensions, if it is ever destroyed. Our island will haunt us all with monsters!"  
  
“What.” Popple deadpanned, his belief of what they were saying just causing the Shadow Thief to back away and almost get back onto the plane until he was stopped by the mint green lunairen grabbing his arm.  
  
“Where are you going?” they asked, mostly out of confusion at him starting to give up that quickly, they then pointed to the lake, a hole in the darkness was as visible as the look of determination on their face; “Come on, we need to figure out what is going on in star lake’s temple before it gets worse!”  
  
“No, ya don’t need my help on...whatever this is, see? i am **NOT** dealing with your temple problem!” Popple said, trying to get their hand off of him.  
  
“But you said you’d help us out!” they pleaded, right before their ears went back and they continued; “please, just this once, our temple is very important to us, and one of the jewels we need to fix everything might be in there! i can’t get it by myself...”  
  
Popple stood there for a few moments, backing a bit farther before glaring at himself and the Lunairen’s expression, he looked down at Fawful, who just shrugged at in a ‘i can’t do anything about this’ sort of way.  
  
After a while longer, Popple looked back at the plane, and sighed before speaking;”fine, i’ll join ya and your temple raiding, just save stuff in there for me, see?”  
  
The mint green lunairen tilted their head at what he said, before shrugging and shaking his hand almost as furiously as last time.  
  
“Thank you! Now let's go, before the thing closes!” they then said, getting behind and pushing Popple into the gap, who then bounced on the ground slightly, as they hopped in just in time before the shadowy hole closed and blocked their entrance.  
  
“Did ya **HAVE** to do that?!” Popple yelled, getting up and feeling immensely annoyed at being pushed into trouble AGAIN.  
  
“Sorry! I got a little too excited, heh heh,” they replied, laughing nervously and shrinking back from the death glare the Shadow Thief was giving them. 

Their ears then perked up as they took a glance to the middle of the lake, which held an absolutely huge white and grey temple, with towering, purple-leaved trees wrapping around it and holding it up like pillars.

“Well that is being an...interesting place of curiosity.” Fawful said, mostly verbalizing what Popple was also feeling at this moment, well, except for the Shadow Thief’s urge to ransack the whole place in search of stuff to get out of it, at least.  
  
The feeling of shadows growing behind the mint green lunairen’s back told them that they should probably go inside now. “Hey, uh, let's get a move on, please?”  
  
Popple huffed, then after a bit of waiting, scooped up Fawful and followed them to Star Lake’s temple, jumping over a few exposed roots as the group stopped in front of the entrance, the doors to the inside were shut tight, with odd chains blocking it from being opened.  
  
“Huh? When did someone lock this place up?” the mint green lunairen asked, jingling the chains a bit.  
  
“Maybe someone’s wanted to make sure no one got in?” Popple attempted to answer, instinctively walking up to the lock on the chain and inspecting it for a place to pick at.  
  
“But why though, and how would anybody even come here to break in when it’s clearly erm, ‘protected’, by shadows?” they said, gesturing to the area around the three. Then noticing Popple managing to unlock the chains. “...also what are you doing?”  
  
“Just getting rid of the problem, what, you’ve never heard of lockpickin’?” Popple said, turning his head briefly before turning back when the click from the thing told him it was unlocked, he then mumbled something about the lock before getting up and pulling the chains off with ease.  
  
“No, actually i…”they trailed off, before holding back themself and changing the subject; “nevermind, i just didn’t know the Mario Brothers friends were so diverse in their abilities!”  
  
Popple flinched at the mention of the mario bros, before shaking his head and holding back his urge to correct them. ‘ _they don’t know you’re actually enemies with those two, just let them have this moment…_ ’  
  
“Yeah… let’s just... get inside the dang temple already.” the Shadow Thief deadpanned, putting down Fawful and trying to shove the door open by himself. Only to yelp from the strain of doing it.  
  
“...is he usually like this?” the lunairen asked to Fawful, as Popple tried in using a bomb to bust the doors open, only for it to explode in front of his face.  
  
“Yes, if there is being the treasures, at the very leasting…” the buggy beanish replied, moving out of the way of Popple’s rock that he threw, which bounced off the door and landed near the two.  
  
The lunairen looked at Popple with worry, then hopped over to him. “Do you need some help?” they asked.  
  
“Nah, i've got it, see?” Popple answered, using an extremely damaged hammer that he pulled out of his thievery bag and hitting it against one of the doors... until it broke the part he hit it with. Making him both extremely angry and exasperated at the same time as he stared at it with a stone-faced expression.  
  
“Yeah… you need my help,” they said, right before stepping back a few feet, Popple was about to ask what the heck they were doing, until they did a running start, and hit both of the doors with their feet. Causing it to smash open with a hard *bang*.  
  
Popple stood there, dumbfounded at what they did, the lunairen walked in with a happy little hop before he and Fawful followed in.

Fawful was amazed at what they did, while Popple… he wasn’t angry beyond reason or anything, nope, not at all.  
  
“You were only able to do it ‘cause i loosened it up for ya…” Popple grumbled, crossing his arms as he didn’t notice the doors to the temple slowly and silently close behind the three of them...

* * *

The temple was much larger on the inside, with a ceiling that Popple couldn’t even see past the darkness of the floor they were on, the white walls around them were housed to a lot of blue and purple torchlight, most likely because the leaves from the trees outside were practically shielding what little light there was coming through. 

Though the relative brightness the torches brought didn’t stop it from looking creepier than it would be, seeing as the place looked to have been through an indoor tornado. With various bits of furniture strewn throughout the halls and blocking a few entryways to the other rooms this place had, along with a few bits of the walls themselves having bits missing or scratched like crazy.  
  
“What...happened here?” The lunairen gasped at all the damage the place had, almost tripping over a stray chair as they glanced around the place with horror.  
  
The sound of a loud, monstrous roar from the basement told them everything that happened, as the sound rumbled through the floor and throughout the trio’s bodies, Popple looked at them with confusion.

“Ya seriously have a freaking monster here?” he asked simply, jumping back a bit from the pretty large amount of fear he was hiding from the rest of the group.  
  
“N-no...we don’t, we aren’t supposed to, at least.” they said, feeling deeply afraid and uncomfortable at there being someone, no **something** , that shouldn’t be here at all.  
  
They stepped around the place a bit, before they noticed something, they moved a few chairs leading to a stairway going down a floor, showing a crumbling hole where the thing probably came up for a brief time. various scrapes from its... claws? Scales? Whatever the method that the creature used to make them while it was traveling back and forth sure did a number to it at least.  
  
The stairs seemed to be okay to walk down though, as the steps were only minorly scraped, so they walked to Popple and Fawful, who were having a short back and forth that stopped when they came over there.  
  
“I’ve found the way down, we’d better get down there before whatever that thing is comes back up.” the mint green lunairen declared, gesturing to the staircase and turned to plead Popple to go along with them again.  
  
Popple was about to walk away from this situation again, at least that was until he noticed the doors outside this place being closed tighter than last time. He then turned back and sighed, picking up Fawful before nodding with a small amount of anger, and walking alongside the pleased lunairen.  
  
‘ _This place better have something really valuable…_ ’ He thought, walking down the steps with haste.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we're into the first area of Lunaire Kingdom's island!  
> Popple really doesn't want to be here, but too bad, you signed up for future pain and heroism my poor Shadow Thief...  
> (Also boy i can't wait to get to the first monster 'boss' of this story OwO, though it'd be weird for them to immediately get to it, so imma probably add some puzzle-y stuff in the next chapter, even if it's going to make it a lot longer than i thought it would be heck.)  
> (and yes this is going to be split kinda paper mario-y wise because it sounds better to have the chapters named that way lol)  
> ~TKitten


	4. Chapter 1-2

The trio’s footsteps rang through the stairway’s walls as they ran down them, only stopping when the three touched down in front of a closed door that the mint green lunairen tilted their head at.  
  
“What’s going on?” Popple asked, trying to see past their large ears.  
  
“The basement is not supposed to have a security system like this.” they replied, moving out of the way to show the Shadow Thief what they were talking about. A door that was currently locked, with an odd mechanism beside the thing, it was a random podium-shaped thing with two buttons at the top, and a screen in the middle showing nothing at the moment.  
  
“ya keep your basement-... nevermind, lemme see the what’s on this thing,” Popple said, walking up to the machine and pressing one of the buttons curiously; it then beeped and sprung to life, showing the question, which was a simple: ‘why are you here?’.  
  
“We’re here to figure out what is happening in the temple..?” the mint green lunairen said, right before hesitating, then pushed the closest relevant button, which read ‘to slay the dragon’, which beeped in a higher pitch, then with a click the door unlocked with a happy tune.  
  
“Well that was easy,” Popple added, stepping over to the door, checking to make sure it was truly unlocked, then turning the knob and opening it…  
  
...To a room that clearly wasn’t a basement; in fact it looked to be more like a dungeon rather then the place Popple and Fawful expected. With rocky walls, and a floor that would be uncomfortable on bare feet.

The mint green lunairen was just as perturbed as the beanish brothers, as they walked into the room and scanned the place before speaking; “The curse seriously messed with the basement too?!”  
  
“...sure seems that way.” Popple replied, putting Fawful down and walking into the new room they were in while also checking the place out and...almost falling into the huge hole that separated the trio from the other end of the room, and the way out.  
  
“W-will you have carefulness?!” Fawful chastised, dashing over and feeling a bit of vertigo at being unable to see the bottom of the chasm.  
  
Popple scrambled back up and backed as far away from the edge as possible, fear on his face as he then turned his head to look at his other companion in this place, who had found another one of the weird machines. And was looking over it with their hand on their chin.  
  
“Somethin' up?” Popple asked.  
  
“I think this thing’s busted. here, let me show you,” the lunairen said, pressing one of the buttons; only for it to flicker with a low beep, along with the name Tethys flashing for a second before shutting off again.  
  
“What the heck is a Tethys?” Popple asked again, only for him to see them just stare at the Shadow Thief with a little head tilt.  
  
“Oh, didn't i tell you my name?” they replied matter-of-factly, then shrugged at Popple’s expression, ”but yeah? My name’s Tethys, though i don’t know how this thing knows it...”  
  
They then walked over to a small pile of rubble, ignoring Popple’s late realization at what they meant, and checked around the area for any other ways to get to the other side of the room.  
  
“W-wait your name’s…” Popple trailed off, he felt immensely confused at their newly learned name, and honestly expected it to be a lot more odd but… at least he didn’t have to constantly refer to Tethys by their appearance now. Grambi he was getting tired of doing that.  
  
Tethys moved a stray piece of rock as Popple fiddled around with the puzzle some more, which revealed a hole in the wall that was cracked a lot more than the thing that blocked iit, there also seemed to be something inside it, but no matter how hard they reached they couldn’t get whatever it was that was in there. it was also way too small for them to crawl into...

They stomped their feet in frustration, then took a glance at Fawful and got an idea as they called to him: “Hey, Fawful can you come here for a second?”  
  
Fawful was about to ask why, but changed his mind as he saw what they were talking about, he sighed and nodded. Then crawled into the hole in the wall with ease.  
  
“So what’s in there?” Tethys questioned, trying their best to see inside.  
  
“It is just being a smaller version of the machine out there!” Fawful said, right before pushing one of the buttons, which almost blinded him when it suddenly turned on. Though it didn’t show anything at the moment when Fawful’s vision recovered enough to check.  
  
“It has activation!” he called, and was about to get out when the first contraption outside of the hole sprung to life as well, scaring Popple slightly with a loud beep and finally showing what they need to answer on their screens.  
  
Tethys walked up to it and read aloud the question to the others, just to make sure everyone was on the same page; “ ‘you find someone unconscious on the road, and there’s no one else around except for you. What do you do?’ ...what?”  
  
The trio took a bit to process the question; feeling very confused at the sudden complexity of it compared to the last one, before Popple stepped over and almost pressed the button that said ‘steal from them’-  
  
-That was until Tethys slapped his hand off of it and pressed the opposite one. Which said ‘get them to a hospital’. the contraption then did a happy little series of beeps before shutting off. presumably waiting for the other one to be answered.   
  
“Dude, seriously?” Tethys accused Popple right afterwards, glaring at him while the Shadow Thief gave them a sheepish smile.  
  
“What? The person probably had somethin’ good with them, see?” Popple replied, glancing over to Fawful, who put the same thing in when he saw what they did. And crawled out of the hole while the door at the other end of the room unlocked.  
  
Tethys facepalmed at Popple, then mumbled a “grambi this guy…” before taking in a breath and said; “look, just let me handle the questions, okay? For the safety of all of us, who knows what could’ve happened if you pressed the wrong thing…”  
  
“Um..?”Fawful began awkwardly, glancing down at the chasm between the three and the exit. “Fawful knows that there is tension, but… how are we being able to get to the door?”  
  
Popple and Tethys paused; oh, right, they forgot about the whole ‘figure out what’s wrong with the temple’ thing.  
  
Popple looked around the room for something to use to get to the other side, then after finding nothing that was long or sturdy enough to use He checked inside his thievery bag; finding a grappling hook inside, along with some boards connected to rope and four stakes, he grinned at the stuff that could be used to make a quick bridge to the other side before turning to Tethys. 

“Here, hold this,” He tossed one half of the temporary bridge to them, before holding the other half of the supplies, putting the first two stakes down to the best of his ability, then using the grappling hook to get over to the door, and put the other stakes into the ground and tying his end of the bridge down. While Tethys did the same on their end. 

They then did a small cheer as they made sure the thing was stable enough to walk on, and hopped over to the Shadow Thief with a smile on their face. While Fawful just got over there normally.  
  
“Well that was fun,” they said with a small chuckle, before turning serious for a bit to open the door to check the next room.

Which was a very long hallway lit up pretty dreadfully, with magenta and yellow torches being the only way they could even see the end to it, then they realized how far the thing was compared to this room and the last one; this place clearly did not fit with the temple’s structure, since judging by the sounds from the first floor the monster should be right around here.

...Then again this place was being messed to the Underwhere and back due to the island’s curse, so this room (and any other they may run into) may be even more nonsensical than they realize.   
  
Tethys shrugged, their mind not wanting to know how complex this place was, as they started walking into the blinding hallway with Popple and Fawful in tow. before the door closed behind them when another, loud roar from the monster in the place started a minor earthquake.  
  
“Great, what do we do now?” Popple asked, anger and a hint of worry in his voice as the diminishing tremors allowed him to look back at where they just came from.  
  
“Uh… let's… just get to the next room, before the monster gets even more cranky.” Tethys replied, feeling a similar amount of emotion as the Shadow Thief.  
  
"but what about-"  
  
"we can worry about the door and it's integrity later, we need to go, **Now**." they interjected, right before dashing ahead the two beanish brothers, as the sound of muffled metallic scraping against rock, and long chains clattering along with it, told the trio that they were getting closer to who they were searching for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heck this chapter was really hard to write, with me getting an idea for it that didn't sound too good, then the rewriting to a different idea taking forever on trying to figure out what the (very basic i know) puzzle for this thing was, i honestly didn't like this chapter but oh well, at least i tried doing some sort of puzzles in this thing heck.  
> next is one last puzzle thing, then the boss fight, which i have to adjust some things for since the draft this thing was on was a lot shorter and wasn't in this place at all. joy~  
> ~TKitten


End file.
